TELECOMMUNICATIONS
FROM THE ARCHIVES: (WSJ) February 27, 2003
Adelphia Will Disclose Review Of Capital-Expenditure Policy
By LINGLING WEI
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
NEW YORK -- Adelphia Communications Corp. will disclose Friday a review of its policy on accounting for capital expenditures in a report to the Securities and Exchange
Commission, a person familiar with the matter said.
At the center of the review is how the cable company, which filed for Chapter 11 last June, should have booked certain system repair- and upgrade-related expenses, the person said.
Eric Andrus, a spokesman for the company said, "The company has been actively reviewing its capital-expenditure policies established by the prior management," meaning the founding Rigas family, which relinquished control of Adelphia in May after disclosures of alleged self-dealing. "We expect to have a disclosure tomorrow," Mr. Andrus added.
Adelphia, which has been re-examining its scandal-tainted books with its new auditor PriceWaterhouseCoopers since last year, hasn't issued any audited financial statements for 2001 and 2002. The company expects to restate its 1998, 1999, 2000 Ebitda -- or earnings before income tax, depreciation and amortization -- once the auditing process is completed, possibly later this year.
In deliberating its capital-expenditure policy, Adelphia, like many cable companies, has been faced with the question of how to account for a purported repair when the customer asking for the service wants to actually upgrade the system. The costs associated with upgrading a cable system are booked as capital expenditures, or expenses spread out over time.
Repairs, by comparison, entail immediate expense booking, thus cutting into earnings right away.
The Coudersport, Pa., company disclosed in June that it had overstated its 2000 and 2001 Ebitda by $160 million and $210 million, respectively. Ebitda, which excludes certain costs such as those associated with system upgrades, is a preferred measure of cash flow by cable companies.
Adelphia's accounting errors partly contributed to about $40 million worth of reconnection and other labor costs in each of the two years. Those costs were booked as capitalized expenses, rather than operating expenses.
Adelphia's review of its capital expenditure policy also comes at a time when the cable industry is trying to increase the clarity and consistency of its financial reporting. In October, a group of 11 cable companies, including Adelphia, AT&T
Corp.'s AT&T Broadband (since acquired by Comcast Corp.), and Charter Communications Inc., pledged to implement a set of new guidelines for that purpose. Among the guidelines include six standard reporting categories for capital spending. (See article2 from Oct. 21, 2002 on the cable companies' pledge.)
In a separate matter, a hearing on Adelphia's request to hire two veteran cable executives continued in a New York bankruptcy court Thursday. A committee representing its shareholders oppose the pay package proposed for new Chief Executive and Chairman William Schleyer, and new President and Chief Operating Officer Ronald Cooper, as "grossly excessive." The two former AT&T Broadband executives were hired by Adelphia last month. But Judge Robert Gerber has yet to sign off on their contracts for them to become effective.
Write to Lingling Wei at 4